Such close union of brain power and ingenuity is not confined to any one industry. The search for the most promising fields for waste-products is far too fascinating. Even the private member of the community is taking a hand in the great game, and is contributing, in varying degree, to the widespread success which has been, and still is being, recorded. The rural housewife, in her lonely remote home, contributes to the amenities of country life by bottling her own fruits, following this practice to avoid wastage arising from a glut of produce in her own garden, or in her appreciation of the prolific luscious contributions offered by the wild hedgerow. She knows that the rubber rings with which the bottles are sealed can only be used once. Hitherto, she has always thrown the spent rings into the fire to get rid of them. Now, true housewife that she is, she reasons that surely these rings, while useless to her for fruit bottling, are suitable for some other equally important purpose. Forthwith she makes inquiries to ascertain the quarter in which they are likely to find favour, even if it be only to swell the scrap-rubber melting-pot. The closely observant student of the countryside, during his autumnal rambles through the copses and spinneys, reflects upon the profusion of the hazel-nut, and the circumstance that this crop is permitted to fall to the ground to rot, or to suffer only partial appropriation by the thrifty squirrel. Surely, he ruminates, such wild fruit possesses some commercial value. The shell can be turned into a high grade charcoal for the laboratory, while the nut itself is rich in oil, which it ought to pay to extract, leaving a residue to offer an excellent winter-feed for cattle. As he ponders upon the problem the fact dawns upon him that the country is rather more disposed to import vast quantities of a similar product, derived from the coco-nut, palm kernels and other exotic fruits, than to exert itself a trifle to turn its domestic resources to account.